From Abu Dhabi to Kazan: WSAD2017 oc team shares its experience

A series of debriefing meetings dedicated to discussion of results of the 44th WorldSkills Competition 2017 started today, December 5, in Kazan.

Present at the debriefing’s plenary session was Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan and Chief of Staff of the Office of the Cabinet of Ministers, Shamil Gafarov, who welcomed the audience and brought some updates of the host city's prteparation for the upcoming event: “Not only shall we ensure the successful staging of the Competition, but most importantly we shall ensure that the event’s legacy will continue to exist, operate and bring further results. It is very important for us.”

Shamil Gafarov also informed of the support provided to participants of the WorldSkills Movement: “We work not only with young people of the age valid for participation in the Competition, but also with boys and girls at high schools, technical schools and at higher educational institutions. And in general we create a whole WorldSkills cluster that works and promotes this movement in the Republic of Tatarstan.”

Tatarstan’s Minister of Youth Affairs and Sport, Vladimir Leonov, who also attended the debriefing’s opening, said: “After Abu Dhabi, the next step for all of us is the 2019 WorldSkills Competition in Kazan. Preparation is well underway; the construction of Kazan Expo WorldSkills Arena is in process and is scheduled to be finished in the summer of 2018. The venue will be commissioned in late summer-early autumn, 2018. This week we will be summing up the results of Abu Dhabi so that we can wisely plan the event in Russia, keeping in mind all the challenges that the local OC faced in the UAE.”

During the next four days, members of the Emirati delegation headed by WSAD2017 Head of Marketing, Communications and PR, Fahar AlSuwaidi, will discuss the experience of staging the past WorldSkills Competition with their collegues from Russia.

Members of the WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017 Organising Committee revealed the key stages of the event’s preparation and delivery, provided the analysis of their operation and specified all the pluses and minuses.

“We would like to ensure a proper handover to Kazan; we will not look back, we will only look to the future so that we create something better than Abu Dhabi, and Kazan has every opportunity for this,” Fahar AlSuwaidi said.

Special focus was made on the Competition’s legacy: in particular, on a positive impact of the past Competition on development of vocational education and provision of better equipment for technical schools and colleges in the UAE.